Isenburg and a vaste domain that he freed from tax and royal jurisdiction and which on that account was called superior Mundat. A no less important gift was that from Count Rudhart, who made over to the church of Strasburg, in 748, Ettenheim with several neighbouring villages on the right bank of the Rhine. Many other eminent personages of this country increased successively by their liberality the wealth of the episcopal see. A great advantage was granted by Charlemain in 775, which was to exempt the subjects of the bishopric from all tolls and taxes imposed upon the traders travelling through the empire. At that time considerable sums had already been employed to adorn the interior of the Cathedral. In the year 826, the abbot Ermold the Black, living in exile at Strasburg, speaks with enthusiasm of the beautiful temple of the Virgin and of the other altars that decorate it. This ecclesiastic, with great ardour changed the metal of the antique statues he could yet find into sacred vases; a bronze Hercules, two cubits high, alone escaped the pursuit of his pious zeal; after preserving it several centuries in the Cathedral, it was at last sold, and is now at Issy near Paris.

A fire, which in 873 destroyed a portion of the church and all its archives, occasioned, no doubt, important repairs, and this event was the cause of a new royal confirmation of all the possessions of the church. In 1002 it was plundered, profaned and set on fire by the soldiers of Hermann, duke of Suabia and Alsacia, who was then contending with Henry of Bavaria for the imperial crown, Strasburg and its bishop Wernher having declared for the latter. Subdued by Henry II, Hermann was compelled to repair the damage caused to the church by placing at bishop Wernher's disposal the income of the abbey of Saint-Stephen of which he was the patron. With these funds, which the bishop increased by means of a new levy of taxes and by indulgences, he was preparing to restore his Cathedral, when in 1007 a thunderbolt achieved its destruction.

He then formed the project of rebuilding the church on a plan of much larger dimensions and after the style of architecture that was then making its first appearance. The revenues of the bishopric, contributions furnished by the clergy of Alsacia and large sums of money granted by the head of the empire, afforded Wernher the necessary resources for the execution of his plan. This was examined and discussed in the presence of several master-architects whom he had sent for. The plan once fixed upon, stones were brought from the fine quarries of free-stone in the Kronthal. The peasants and bondsmen of the country brought them to the town where they were cut in the square then called Frohnhof, between the Cathedral and the present palace. It was during these labours that in 1042 the emperor Henry II came to Strasburg; the dignified and austere deportment of the clergy of the high chapter, the tranquillity prevailing under the roof of the episcopal church, made such an impression on this prince, that he for a moment resolved to resign the crown and solicit his admittance among the canons of the Cathedral. The bishop appeared at first to accede to this wish; but it was only to prescribe to Henry, henceforth his subordinate, to resume the imperial authority which Providence had bestowed on him; the emperor acquiesced and perpetuated the remembrance of his pious wish by the foundation of a royal prebend.

When, in 1015, a sufficient quantity of materials was collected, they set to work by digging the ground. At the depth of more than five fathoms they drove down stakes, filled the space between them with clay mixed with lime, fragments of bricks and coal; and on this solid base were laid the foundation stones.

Tradition gives an account of a hundred and even two hundred thousand men being employed in the construction of this church, which work, thanks to the religious enthusiasm of that epoch and the labours performed by vassals and workmen for the salvation of their souls, advanced very rapidly.

In the year 1027 bishop Wernher set out for Constantinople, and never returned to his native land. From that time we have but imperfect and uncertain accounts touching the progress of the building. All we know is, that in 1028 they had built up to the roof. It seems likely from that account that this monument, built in the byzantine style, at once so elegant and so simple, was soon after completed by the erection of a tower, and that it remained in the same state till, owing to sundry circumstances and, perhaps, to bad construction, it began to need important repair. It is impossible to determine the time when repairing the church took place; however, this happened probably not before the middle of the thirteenth century and in the then new style, since called the Gothic order. This opinion is confirmed by the ancient seal of our city, which likely enough and according to the custom of those times, represents the front of the Cathedral.

That it had a tower in 1130 is a certain fact; for Kœnigscoven speaks of its destruction by fire in the course of that year; successive fires, in 1140, 1150, 1176 also materially injured the beautiful edifice; besides, the continual wars and tumultuous commotions of the time prevented the bishops from undertaking essential repairs. It appears that these causes, by degrees, brought on the complete ruin of bishop Wernher's constructions; for unquestionably the part included between the nave and the two towers dates but from the thirteenth century, and cannot have been begun before the middle of it. What remained of the old church was pulled down at that time and a new and more spacious edifice was erected, built in the style then spreading over all Europe. Considering the immense size of this monument, it is easy to imagine that the work went on but slowly, and an old chronicle mentions that on the 7th September 1275 they finished the middle part of the superior arch-roofs, with the exception of the towers in front. By whom these labours were directed is altogether unknown.

It was bishop Conrad of Lichtenberg who undertook to rebuild the parts that were still in a state of ruin and thus at last to accomplish this great work of the Cathedral1.

In order to execute this design, he published indulgences all over the country; and after collecting large sums of money in the town, he applied to the ecclesiastics of his diocese, asking their own gifts and offerings as well as those of the faithful under their direction; in a synod held in the diocese, the clergy agreed to give up, during four years, a fourth part of their revenues. Conrad entrusted the direction of this work to Master Erwin of Steinbach, who, according to some old documents, was a native of Mayence. This great architect began by rebuilding the nave, the arch-roofs of which were completed in 1275. Then he commenced the façade of the church and its towers from a plan so bold and sublime that the conception of it places Erwin for ever at the head of the architects of the middle age